The Buddha, The Dharma, The Sangha

"Spiritual powers and their wondrous functioning--hauling water and carrying firewood." --Layman Pang, upon his realization

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Tomorrow night, that's Monday, look into the Eastern sky around dusk, and fairly low on the horizon, you will be able to get a good look at planet Jupiter, which will come closest to Earth than it has in almost 50 years. It won't be this visible again until 2022, and who has time to wait!

Evidently, Jupiter will pass 368 million miles from Earth. I'm not an astronomer, and I only know this figure because I read in the newspapers, but 368 million miles?!? Well, it seems like it will be nothing more than a speck, but it will actually be big and bright, and with the aid of binoculars or a telescope, you will be able to see Jupiter's many moons as well. Jupiter will rise in the East as the Sun sets.

"Jupiter is so bright right now, you don't need a sky map to find it," said Tony Phillips, a California astronomer under contract with NASA. "You just walk outside and see it. It's so eye-catching, there it is."

Planet Uranus will also be quite visible--look for it close beside Jupiter, but not so bright and harder to see without a telescope. But with the aid of a telescope, it will appear as an emerald-colored disk less than one degree from Jupiter.

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The Blue Lotus Seed: A Buddhist journal

Welcome to The Blue Lotus Seed, a space created to offer the Dharma, through poetry, art, musings and discourse. The lotus is a water flower that begins in mud and sediment, rising through murky water as it pushes to reach the surface. The flower pod, tight and drab green, slowly opens to the sky. In Buddhist lore, the lotus is a symbol of our humble beginnings, and what waits for us, as we come ever closer to realizing our Buddha Nature.

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A Buddhist Priest with The Blue Mountain Lotus Society, Order of the Dragonfly, I began seriously studying Buddhism June of 2005. After I received the Precepts, things moved very quickly. I committed to the 3 year Priest Studies
Program directed by Sensei Anthony Stultz of Harrisburg, PA.
In May of 2010, I finished my course of studies, and I am now a fully ordained Osho.
All opinions expressed in this blog are my own humble reflections of the Dharma, however deluded, and my most sincere hope for Upaya, the skillful manifestation of the Prajnaparamitta, inspired by Bodhidharma, Shinran, Dogen Zenji, Bankei and all of my excellent teachers, both past, present and future, all alive in the indestructable, unborn, immutable Buddha Nature. May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering, May all beings be free!